


closer to where I started

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phandom Big Bang 2017, minor injury, slight non-descriptive mention of vomitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 11:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12409437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: An onstage accident at a convention leads to a week of stress, nightmares, and evaluating life choices for Dan and Phil.





	closer to where I started

**Author's Note:**

> Please go check out [all of the incredible art done by psychicmoth for this fic](https://psychicmoth.tumblr.com/post/166573751909/phandom-big-bang-2017-art-for-closer-to-where), a few of which you will find embedded in the story below. 
> 
> Thank you to [Leela](http://nihilist-toothpaste.tumblr.com), Mermaid, [Shoe](http://twitter.com/BeginningWithI), and [Dann](http://queerofcups.tumblr.com) for some much needed hand holding, beta reading, and general encouragement over the past couple of months - and big thanks to the word warrior group, because this fic would be a few thousand words shorter without all those desperately needed writing session!

Accidents happen both all at once and in slow motion. 

All at once: Dan's head hits the ground with a sickening crack.

Phil can hear it. The audience can hear it. The ones in the front row, at least. 

In slow motion: the queasy silence, the hush of people holding their breath, waiting for Dan to bounce back up. 

Dan doesn't bounce back up. 

*

*

The screaming starts, frantic and panicked. Phil's knees feel weak, a wall of adrenaline hitting him hard. 

He drops the microphone in his hand, stumbles with too much speed and no grace to the edge of the stage. His hand braces against the ledge and he propels his body, going down hard on one knee. It'll bruise later, but he doesn't even feel it in the moment. 

Dan's there, on the ground. His eyes are closed but he is awake, mouth drawn into a tight line. 

"Dan," Phil says. 

Dan's eyes blink open. "Hurts." 

Phil kneels beside him, cups his cheek and touches his head. 

There's warmth, sticky and red. It's blood - Dan's blood. When Dan struggles to sit up, Phil can see it in the spot he was laying. 

"Dan," Phil says, urgent. What does he think Dan can do, really? He's not sure, but he says it again. "Dan." 

"I'm okay," Dan says, one hand flailing out. It lands on Phil's side and Dan's fingers clench into his shirt. "I'm fine." 

"You're not," Phil says. His voice doesn't sound like his own. "There's blood." 

"There's - oh," Dan says, faintly. He reaches to touch the back of his own head. "Oh. It hurts." 

The noise of the crowd rears up again. Dan rests his head on Phil’s shoulder.

Phil is helpless and terrified. 

* 

Neither all at once nor slow motion: the parts he only remembers later, the ones he will never recall with perfect detail but all the same cannot forget. 

EMTs swarming. Phones in the air, brightly colored cases obscuring faces. 

Phil told them to take Dan somewhere private. He remembers Dan arguing that he can walk, that he doesn’t need a stretcher - Dan, stubborn despite everything, getting to his own feet and walking backstage. 

He remembers putting his body between Dan and the crowd, wondered how many people could see Dan’s blood on his hands.

*

From backstage he can hear the voices of one of the other youtubers on the lineup start to speak, booming through the microphone about how they get him early. 

The crowd mostly doesn’t respond, save a few confused cheers. 

That’s when his memory crystallizes, when he feels dropped into the moment - just in time to hear Dan arguing. 

“Of course it hurts, I just fucking cracked it on the ground-” Dan is saying when Phil joins him backstage. 

The crowd around him has grown. One of the convention managers is there, looking distressed. There are three men in EMT shirts. Dan is ducking the hands of one of them as the man tries to feel around his skull. 

“Dan, just let him check you over,” Phil says. His voice sounds firm and in control in a way he does not really think he is at all. 

Dan’s eyes snap toward his and Phil can see past the frustration, past the bite of attitude, to a Dan that feels scared and cornered. 

“Does he need stitches?” Phil asks. 

“The cut doesn’t look deep,” the EMT says. Phil isn’t sure what EMT even stands for, but that’s what it says on the back of the man’s shirt. “Looks like it’s a shallow scrape, but head wounds always bleed a lot.” 

Phil remembers his mum saying that. 

“Are you sure?” Phil asks.

He might believe it if his mum were here to say it again, but he’s got no reason to not second-guess this guy. 

“Phil, I am not going into an American hospital,” Dan says. “You’ve seen what they’re like.”

“Concussion is the bigger concern,” the EMT says. 

The words swim in Phil’s brain. The EMT is talking still, going through a list of things to watch for. He struggles to take it all in, and mostly fails because Dan’s hands are shaking. Dan’s hands never shake. 

“You should have someone with you at all times for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” he finishes. “If that won’t be possible-” 

“I’ll be with him,” Phil says. 

*

They make their way back up to the hotel room through the service corridors, with four security guards. 

Marianne’s behind, taking care of paperwork and talking to a very concerned team of people from the convention who are likely as concerned about possible suing and public image as they are about Dan himself. 

Phil’s fingers are clenched into fists. His heart is still beating too fast. 

Dan looks as white as a sheet. If this were any other time, Phil thinks, Dan would be making some kind of comparison. 

“I need to call my grandma,” Dan says. “Before she sees.” 

The elevator door dings open. 

All of the security guards, big lumbering men, start to step in with them. 

Dan just looks at Phil. “My grandma. I need to tell her I’m okay.” 

“Dan-” Phil starts, then stops. To the security guards: “We’re fine from here.”

He’s not really sure how much longer he can go without looking Dan over himself, and he doesn’t want an audience for it. 

“We’re supposed to-” one of them starts to say. 

Phil’s voice goes uncharacteristically firm. “We’re fine.”

They’re standing on the other side of the elevator doors when they slide shut. 

“Dan-” Phil says, holding a hand up. 

Dan grabs Phil’s hand before it can touch his cheek. He stares and stares and Phil doesn’t understand until he looks down too and he sees the streak of blood that runs from the center of Phil’s palm halfway down his arm. 

Phil pulls his hand back. “It’s fine,” he says. “Dan, you’re fine.” 

Dan blinks at him. “I need to call my grandma.” 

*

Dan calls his grandma. 

It’ll be ridiculously expensive, but it seems very important to him. It’s going on ten at night back home but she answers on the second ring. 

Phil can hear her concerned, “Daniel?” through the line, but he walks away before Dan starts talking, into the bathroom. 

He can’t make out individual words, but the cadence of Dan’s voice is soothing as Phil scrubs the blood from his hands. 

It doesn’t take long for his skin to come clean, but he wants to give Dan privacy and maybe he needs a moment of it himself, so he sits on the toilet with the lid closed and the water running until the sound of Dan’s voice stops. 

*

Dan is sitting on the bed with his face in his hands when Phil steps out. “My head hurts so fucking bad,” he says, then looks up at Phil with bloodshot eyes. “I must be coming out of the shock or something, because fuck. It hurts.” 

Phil types out a message on his phone. 

The answer is almost instantaneous. “Marianne’s checking to see what you can take and she said she’d bring you up something,” he says.

There’s more silence. Phil is standing and he doesn’t know what to do. Everything feels off center. There’s still blood on Dan’s face. He isn’t sure if Dan knows it’s there, and he doesn’t want to point it out. He doesn’t want to say the words out loud.

Dan’s fine, and Phil knows it. But he didn’t for a few minutes there, and he just wishes that this weren’t real and this hadn’t happened. 

“What’s the damage with - everything?” Dan asks, looking up at him again. “Talk to me, I need. Distract me.” 

“Damage?” Phil asks unsteadily. 

“Twitter. Tumblr. Instagram.” 

Oh. 

Right. 

All those things Phil hasn’t given one second of thought to since they walked away from the crowd. 

“I don’t know,” he answers. 

Dan grabs for his phone, and Phil moves without even pausing to consider it. He takes the phone from Dan. “Let me.” 

Dan’s reflexes are definitely hindered, because he barely reacts until the phone is already in Phil’s hand. “Hey,” he protests. 

“Not yet,” Phil says again, pleading now. “Not yet.” 

“Fuck, Phil.” Dan’s hand drops down. “Okay. Fine. Not yet.” 

Phil understands he’s being appeased. He looks down at the phone in his hands, the way it’s moving with every tremble of his fingers. 

He’s so fucked up right now. He takes in a breath and it comes out as half a sob. “Dan.” 

“Hey.” Dan stands up and walks over to him, puts his hands on Phil’s face. “You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

Phil leans forward and presses his mouth to Dan’s, not as gently as he means to. Dan allows it, not quite kissing back but not moving away, for a moment. 

He’s grimacing when he pulls back. “Sorry. My head.” 

“You’ve got-” Phil’s fingers hover in the air above Dan’s temple. 

“I’ve got what?” Dan asks. He touches where Phil’s fingers didn’t, and he must feel it there, dried against his skin. “Shit.” 

He pivots and walks into the bathroom. 

“Shit,” he says, more loudly, then steps out. The look on his face is incredulous. “No fucking wonder you look terrified, why didn’t you tell me-” 

He’s laughing. He’s actually laughing, so Phil laughs too, slightly hysterical sounding. “Dan,” he says. “Dan. You’ve got a bit of-” 

“Just a bit,” Dan says. He’s smiling, still too pale, still looking like devastation in the worst way, but he’s smiling. 

“Yeah, a bit.” Phil smiles too. 

*

He helps Dan wash the blood from his hair. 

The EMT didn’t lie; it is a shallow cut, Phil can see that just from looking. It’s barely more than a scrape, but it bled so much and Phil is terrified of opening it back up. 

But he knows how stubborn Dan can be, and he’d rather do this with Dan than Dan try to do it alone. So works soap into a lather and he stands and watches the water run pink, watches Dan grimace through what is barely a trickle of pressure on the tender spot.

“Better?” Dan asks, gingerly patting his hair dry. 

Phil stands back, looking him over then nodding. “Better.”

*

“We need to look now,” Dan says, after the hair washing, after he’s changed his clothes into something more comfortable, after he’s taken the medicine that Marianne had sent up for him. 

Phil’s out of ways to procrastinate. 

He hands Dan his phone and picks up his own and together, they look. 

Phil looks, at least. 

Dan makes it barely thirty seconds before he puts his phone down with a queasy, “Nope.” 

“What?” Phil asks, afraid to even ask. “What did you see?” 

“It’s not that,” Dan says. “Just, my head. It’s fucking splitting. Can’t look at the phone.” 

“Oh.” Should Phil feel so relieved? Because he does. 

He puts his own phone aside and sits with Dan in the quiet. 

*

Phil gets the call from Martyn just as Dan says his medicine is starting to kick in, but still gets up and walks away to answer it. 

“How is he?” Martyn asks. 

“He’s fine,” Phil says. “Head hurts - I didn’t call, I’m sorry, I forgot-” 

“It’s okay, I know how you are in a crisis,” Martyn says, good natured but it feels like a punch in the gut to Phil. Because it’s true, he is useless in a crisis, he’s useless right now to Dan- “That’s a rain check on dinner?” 

“I think so,” Phil says. “He’ll probably want to rest-” 

“No,” Dan says, standing in the doorway. “That’s Martyn, right? Tell him we’ll still meet him. 

“But Dan-” Phil protests. 

“But Dan,” Dan mocks him gently, in that familiar Dan way. “I’ve almost cracked my skull and bled out today, and now you want to starve me?” 

There’s nothing about Dan’s tone that Phil wouldn’t laugh at any other day, but right now that gut-punched feeling quadruples. 

Phil feels sick. He hasn’t stopped feeling sick, but it gets worse. “Okay,” he says, deciding not to fight it. 

*

Cornelia is the one that suggests the hotel restaurant instead of the place a few miles away that they’d wanted to try. 

Phil is grateful. Because Dan might be trying to insist that he’s fine and that he’s ready for this, but Phil sees how slowly he gets ready to leave and how measured his steps are. 

He also sees that Dan takes an extra two pills before they leave the room. He reads the side of the bottle when Dan’s back is turned and sees that Dan wasn’t supposed to have more for another four hours, at least. 

“Stop that,” Dan says, when he turns back to catch Phil studying the medical instructions. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“Dan, you weren’t supposed to-” 

“They’re harmless, Phil,” Dan says. “They’re barely even making a difference, anyway.” 

“Tell me you won’t take any more until enough time has passed, though?” Because fuck if Phil is going to deal with worrying about Dan overdosing on tablets on top of everything else. 

“Right, be miserable and in pain,” Dan snaps. “Got it.” 

“If it hurts that much, we can just stay in-” He tries again. 

Dan gives him a withering glare. “It’s just a headache,” he says, not seeming to care that it’s contradictory to him just saying how badly his head hurts. “I’m fine.” 

“Dan-” Phil protests, but from the way Dan’s turned away from him he realizes it’s pointless. Dan’s not angry at him, not really. Dan just gets like this when he feels corner or frustrated, snarling like a snappy dog at whatever hand comes nearest. 

*

Dan is so fine that he doesn’t touch his food and can barely keep the thread of conversation going. 

 

Martyn and Cornelia both look at Dan like he might shatter. They’re bubbling over with conversation, talking about all the fans that have been swarming them all day, about how Phil’s mum called as soon as she saw what happened online. 

He can tell Martyn and Cornelia both have questions. Martyn says that he’s been fielding fan questions all day long, but they’re too polite to ask how Dan _really_ is in front of Dan. 

Phil keeps a hand on Dan’s leg under the table, just because part of him needs the touch to tether and calm him. 

He’s surprised when Dan’s fingers cover his own.

*

They don’t order dessert. There’s no lingering, and neither Martyn nor Cornelia call Phil out on the strangeness of him passing up sugar. 

“Wait,” Dan says, before they leave. “We should take a picture.” 

“What?” 

“A picture - the four of us,” Dan says. “I’ll post it on Instagram. That’ll… people will…” 

“See that you’re okay,” Cornelia fills in, smiling. “That’s a lovely idea.” 

They crowd together at the table, Dan leaning into Phil perhaps more than he normally would just to fit them all in the frame. 

“How does this look?” He says, showing the picture to everyone else. Phil is floored when Dan pulls up Instagram right away. 

“No filters?” He asks, trying to sound like he’s teasing. 

“Why mess with perfection?” Dan mutters, barely even bothering to adjust the centering before typing out a caption and hitting post. 

*

“What time is it?” Dan asks. He’s standing carefully with his eyes closed and one hand on the elevator wall. 

Phil looks at the time display on his phone. “Eight thirty-four.” 

“Will you freak out if I say I’m fucking knackered and I feel like shit and I want to go to bed right now?” Dan asks quietly. 

Yes, Phil thinks. But he’s glad Dan’s stopped being angry with him, and he doesn’t want to say anything that might catapult them into another argument - like pointing out that staying in and resting is exactly what Phil wanted to do all along. 

“Of course not,” he says. 

*

*

In the hotel room Dan strips down with the same careful movements he’d dressed with barely two hours before. 

Phil leaves him to it, goes to the kitchenette and pours a glass of water. He brings it back into the bedroom and shakes two tablets out of the bottle of pills for Dan. 

“Two hours,” he says, putting the tablets and a glass of water on the nightstand. “You can have more in two hours.”

“Thanks,” Dan mutters. He pulls the duvet back, “Are you getting in?” 

It sounds like more of a _will you_ than an _are you_ , the way Dan says it. 

“Of course,” Phil says. He undresses with much less care than Dan had, and slides in on the other side. 

Dan turns the light off. It’s quite dark. Phil hadn’t seen Dan draw the curtains, but they’re closed, blocking out the lights from the streets and the city outside. 

“Well,” Dan says, in a softer voice than normal. “Today sucked.” 

Phil laughs. “Yeah. It did.” 

He feels Dan’s hand on his arm. “Thank you for taking care of everything.” 

_I didn’t take care of anything,_ Phil wants to say. But what comes out of his mouth is a much more unplanned: “Did today even happen?” 

Dan laughs. “My head says it did.” 

“Fuck,” Phil says, a word he quite genuinely doesn’t utter very often. 

Dan makes a sound of agreement. “I wish it hadn’t happened. We should be on our third bottle with Martyn and Cornelia right now. Still arguing whether we need individual desserts or just splitting one.” 

“I didn’t even look at the dessert menu,” Phil says. 

“Just the food on my plate made me want to vom,” Dan says, and he laughs, and Phil laughs too, and there’s a strange moment where the tension seems to break. “I’m fucking exhausted though.” 

“Go to sleep,” Phil says softly. 

He lies there wide awake and listens to the sound of Dan drifting off. 

*

He wakes Dan three times in the night, because he remembers hearing that someone with a concussion isn’t supposed to sleep. 

(That’s what he tells Dan, because it sounds better than _every time I close my eyes, I start to dream about blood._ )

The third time, Dan threatens to book a separate room if Phil doesn’t let him get some fucking sleep, so Phil spends the remainder of the night in a fitful state of unrest, drifting only for a few minutes at a time in between long bouts of just watching Dan and reading wikipedia articles on head wounds and concussions. 

*

“What time is it?” Dan asks, voice scratchy. 

He looks like he’s barely slept. Phil feels the same, and it’s only the truth. 

“Not quite eight,” Phil says. “Not an hour we see often.” 

“Yeah.” Dan’s eyes are still closed, even though with the curtains drawn there’s barely light in the room. 

“How’s your head?” Phil asks. 

“Feels like I fell from a height and bashed it on the floor,” Dan says. He blinks his eyes open finally, and looks at Phil. “Blanket apology for being such a dick yesterday? About the uh, dinner plans and the tablets and everything? And last night with you waking me up?” 

Phil smiles, just a little. It feels good. “I suppose.” 

“Blanket apology for being such a dick _today_?” Dan holds a hand out and snags Phil, pulls him close. “Because I’m gonna. I’m gonna be such a dick. And you know it.”

Phil rests his head on Dan’s shoulder. He’s tired, and this feels nice. “I _suppose_. Since I love you a little, and all.” 

“I’ll take what I can get.” Dan squeezes his shoulder. “Love me a little, eh?” 

“Mm.” Phil hums. 

“Enough to get me some drugs?” Dan asks. 

Phil whines. He doesn’t want to pull away. In fact, he feels like maybe he could sleep, pressed up to Dan like this. It’s cozy, and Dan is warm and alive. 

But then he does pull away, because he knows Dan’s head has to be hurting, and _love you a little_ is an awfully big sort of understatement. 

*

Phil tries his best to talk Dan out of getting up and getting dressed, but Dan is adamant. 

“It was a bump on the head,” he says, pulling a shirt on. “It doesn’t hurt as bad today as it did yesterday, and if I stay in this fucking hotel room people are going to think I’m dead.”

“They won’t,” Phil says. “You tweeted that picture last night.” 

Dan pauses. “Oh. Yeah.” 

“Did you forget?” Phil asks. “Dan, they gave us that list of symptoms-” 

“I didn’t forget,” Dan answers too quickly. “Come on, find your shoes.” 

Phil sighs and goes to find his shoes. 

*

“Where are you going?” Phil asks, when Dan tries to take a right down the corridor and not a left to the elevators that would take them to their room. Phil's been watching him nervously eye every turn they take, watched him stop and start his steps a few times.

He’d continued to protest leaving the room all morning long, but they’d shown up at the sponsor meeting like they were meant to. If Dan sat back and didn’t say much - well, everyone understood. 

"Meetup?" Dan says, after a pause. He looks like he knows that isn't the right answer. 

Phil stops walking. 

"No," Dan says. "We already did the meetup."

"It was yesterday," Phil says. 

"There was - something." Dan shakes his head, then winces. "Ow. Remind me not to do that." 

"You wouldn't listen if I did," Phil says. 

His tone is bitter. Dan glares. "So I get a head wound and you being pissed off at me? Great." 

Phil backs down immediately. "We're meant to be going to the room." 

"No," Dan says. "There was - something. Not the meetup, but something we were supposed to do." 

Suddenly, Phil realizes that he's right. "We were going to film something. Marianne canceled for us." 

He thinks, at least. He's sure she did. And if she didn't - well, he can't bring himself to care that much. Everyone’s heard about Dan's fall. Phil’s been answering the texts all morning, unable to ignore them any longer. 

He’s seen Dan answer a few as well, though Dan still doesn’t seem able to look at his phone for any length of time.

"Why?" Dan protests. "I'm _fine_ , Phil." 

"You couldn't even remember where we were going," Phil points out. "Do you really think your memory is sharp enough to film with someone else? It's not something we'll have the ability to edit." 

Dan's answer is just another glare and a quiet grumble. 

"You're confused," Phil says. He puts his hand in his pocket and feels the already worn slip of folded paper. He doesn't take it out, but somehow touching it is enough. He has proof if he needs it, if Dan won't listen. "That was on the list of symptoms. You should see a real doctor." 

"Fuck the list," Dan says. "I'll go back to the room with you, but I don't need to see a doctor." 

"Why not?" Phil asks. 

"We're in fucking Los Angeles, Phil. Everyone already saw me bash my head on the ground." 

He's embarrassed, Phil realizes. "They won't have to know we went." 

"They will," Dan says. "They're fucking-" 

Someone gets off the elevator and walks down the hall. Phil suddenly realizes they've been discussing things in open space. That's not something they ever really do. 

"Room," he says. Dan follows behind. 

*

Standing in the elevator Dan says, "I just want this headache to go away and I want to forget this even happened. We'll get home, I can say it was just a bump, the only reason it looked so serious is that the Vidcon people insisted on being thorough because that's their job, blah blah fuckity blah, I'm all fine and it's all fine."

"Planned this all out already, haven’t you?" Phil asks. 

He's not sold on the plan. 

But Dan is stubborn, and Phil knows that. "I have." 

Phil crosses his arms. “Fine.” 

Dan is already back to shooting him hesitant looks by the time they step foot into the hotel room. “What would you have me do, then, Dr. Lester?” 

“Rest,” Phil says. “That’s what they said yesterday. Bed rest.” 

Dan rolls his eyes and makes a huffy show of kicking his shoes off and laying down on the bed. “Fine. I’ll fucking rest, then. But you’re cuddling me, and I don’t want to hear any argument about it.”

Phil shakes a little with a momentary wave of emotion, the kind of feeling that almost wants to crack him open with how intense it is. He blinks back a couple of tears, because Dan wouldn’t let him hear the end of that. 

“Fine,” he says, pretending to be cross as he lays down behind Dan and fits their bodies together. 

*

Dan sleeps for three hours. 

Phil doesn’t sleep at all. He waits until Dan is asleep and the position starts to get uncomfortable, and sits up. 

His phone on the table across the room catches his eye. 

He tells himself he’s just going to plug it in, but his fingers make his way to the Twitter app regardless. 

So many messages. So many notifications. He closes out twitter and opens his email to an inbox that’s nothing but unread messages. His looks at the count in his text messages. 

He doesn’t know where to start, but he knows he needs to face it now. 

*

*

“I’m taking a shower, okay?” Dan says. 

Phil jumps. He hadn’t even heard Dan wake up. He’s been responding to messages for over an hour, first texts that were quick reassurances, then emails to rearrange plans they’d made both in Los Angeles and back home in England since they were meant to be back by weekend. 

“Do you feel better?” Phil asks. He stands up. 

“I felt fine before,” Dan says. "You're not following me in.”

Phil hesitates, then sits back down. "Leave the door open? Please?" 

Dan rolls his eyes, but he leaves the door open a bit. 

When he walks back out ten minutes later his hair is damp and he's naked. 

"See?" he asks. "Made it just fine." 

"Dan." Phil frowns at him, then he realizes Dan's picked out a button-up to wear. He sits up. "What are you doing?" 

"Getting dressed," Dan says. "We have that party thing." 

"We're not going to a party," Phil says. 

He can tell the tone was a mistake by the way Dan's eyes narrow. 

This is the fight that Dan, with his headache and his stubbornness, has been spoiling for all day. "You can stay here if you want, mate, but I'm going out." 

"Why?" The frustration is rising, an overwhelmed tight feeling in his gut. Dan hates parties. "Why are you being like this?" 

"Because you're acting like my mum!" Dan says, voice rising. "It's not up to you to say what I'm fit enough to do." 

"Are you really mad at me because I'm worried?" Phil asks. 

"I'm going to the party." Dan says, stepping into his nicer jeans. "You can come with me, or you can stay." 

“Fine,” Phil says, stone-faced. “I’ll get ready.”

*

They almost make it out of the hotel, through the long corridors to where they have cars lined up for the talent to go back and forth between hotels and events.

Phil's noticed Dan walking more and more slowly the closer they get. The heavy metal double doors are in sight when Dan stops abruptly. "I'm gonna be sick." 

"Right now?" Phil is alarmed. 

Dan doesn't even look at him. He's breathing shallowly. 

“Dan. We are going to hospital.” Phil says firmly, grabbing Dan’s arm. 

Dan shakes his head and then stops, swallowing hard. “Seriously, I’m about to spew.” 

"How long have you felt like this?" Phil asks. 

"Since I got in the shower," Dan admits weakly. "I thought it was just the humidity from the hot water. It seemed like it was going away." 

They stand there together with Phil rubbing Dan’s back until Dan takes a shaky breath and says, “I think I can make it now.” 

"Back to the room?" Phil asks. 

Dan shakes his head slightly. "To a toilet. Please." 

They do, but barely. Because it was closer to stay downstairs than go back up, they end up in a grimy utility toilet with Dan hovering over the bowl, hands braced on it as his lunch makes its way back up.

When he finally thinks he’s done, he stands and washes his hands. His face is splotchy, red in places and too pale everywhere else, and he’s sweating profusely. “Yeah, let's go to the hospital now.” 

*

Phil's never been in an American hospital before. 

It's terrifying. 

This would be terrifying no matter what country it happened in, but the halls seem louder and the voices flatter and the shrieks and beeps of the machines burrow under his skin. He can’t go back with Dan so he has to sit in the lobby while they do all sorts of scans and tests to make sure it’s not as bad as- 

Well, Phil doesn’t know what it could be as bad as. He’s also not about to google it. What he does instead is text Martyn, who has been spending the day manning their merch booth and fending off hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about Dan and how Dan is doing. Martyn and Cornelia were going to come to their hotel room to check on Dan. 

Phil's hands shake when he sends out the message that they've gone to hospital instead. He tells them that they don't need to come. Marianne's on her way, citing something about insurance and convention paperwork, but underneath he can hear her concern.

He can’t think of anyone to call. It's middle of the night back home. If it were his own mum she'd want to know, but Dan's not the same about his family. He'll tell them, of course, but he'll do it in his own way, in his own time. 

He doesn’t want to check social media, so he texts three of the people who have sent him messages asking if they're at the party and then pulls up an app game to try and pass the time. 

*

“He’s fine,” Marianne says, when she’s sat beside him. 

He repeats it to himself: Dan is fine. Dan is fine. Dan is _fine_.

Except he’s actually not. He’s hurt his head and it’s been two hours and he’s not out yet. 

But empty reassurance is better than no reassurance. 

"He's fine," Martyn says, a hand on Phil's shoulder. He and Cornelia are in their nice party clothes. Phil told them not to come, because there’s really not much to be done. They’re zapping and scanning and studying Dan’s head to make sure it’s nothing more serious than a concussion and then they’ll just be sent off back to the hotel. 

“Yeah,” Phil says. And he knows it, mostly. 

Mostly. 

Except that while Cornelia and Marianne sit having a casual chat about shoes, and a little boy across the room plays with a toy train, and Martyn goes to get them a coffee—while normality thrums even in this strange location—part of his mind is imagining brain bleeds and Dan in a coma and every worst case scenario imaginable. 

* 

Eventually, they are let back. Just Phil and Marianne, because it’s a small space Dan’s been kept waiting in. 

"I'm fine," Dan says. 

He looks tired. He sounds tired. 

Phil's hands are still shaking. 

"How much coffee did you have?" Dan asks. 

"A lot." Phil rubs a hand over his face. "Three. Four. Something." 

Dan’s hand twitches like he’s going to reach for Phil’s, but he doesn’t. There are other people in the room, and they just - they don’t do that. That’s not them. 

But right now Phil wants it to be them, so he reaches out and he firmly takes Dan’s hand. 

He sees Marianne’s eyes twitch toward them. He sees Dan staring down, then back up with his mouth pinched at the corners. 

The doctor talks, oblivious. Phil listens to it all. It’s a lot of halfway reassurances, a lot of statistics that should be good mixed in with warnings that sound anything but. 

Bed rest. Have a friend or family member stay with him. Only approved medicine. Light activity. No sports, no alcohol, light diet. It’s the same things they were told before. 

And then they’re releasing Dan. “Are you sure?” Phil asks, startled by the abrupt ending of the medical jargon talk. 

Dan shoots him an annoyed glare. “Do not fucking tell me you’re trying to convince them to keep me.” 

He’s surly and in pain. But he’s still holding Phil’s hand. 

“I just want to be sure,” Phil says, looking at the doctor and not at Dan. “He’ll be alright if he goes back to the hotel? He doesn’t need to be watched more?” 

“I am going to kick you out of this fucking room,” Dan threatens. “They already told me I can’t fly home for another week. If I’m being imprisoned in this godforsaken country, I at least want to be able to order too much expensive room service and watch television that isn’t on a five pixel screen. What are you smiling at?” 

“Nothing,” Phil says, because he isn’t sure how to say that he’s smiling because Dan sounds like Dan, and that’s more reassuring than anything else. 

*

The car has tinted windows, so they drive right past but they can see throngs of people, some huddled together and upset, some shrieking at every movement out the door. 

They aren’t expecting the crowd of people at the hotel. Marianne’s gone back ahead of them, because Dan and Phil aren’t the only people she’s managing at the event. 

“Fuck,” Dan says, and Phil remembers abruptly that Dan doesn’t remember falling, doesn’t remember waking up and seeing all the people taking all those photos and videos. He’s checked twitter, but he’s only seen bits and pieces, unable to really focus on the smaller screen. 

“They all saw,” Phil says quietly, because he does remember. 

Dan is still staring. “Do they think I’m fucking dead or something? They saw the picture-” 

“Someone must have- they must have found out-” Phil can’t count the number of times his stomach has dropped with dread in the past two days. 

“I can’t,” Dan says, leaning his head against the seat carefully. “I can’t deal with this right now.” 

*

They sit in the car unmoving for ten minutes while their driver confers with whoever needs to be conferred with, and when they do start to move again it’s around to the back loading entrance of the hotel, where there’s security waiting. 

The fans sound closer than Phil would prefer, but they’re out of line of sight and he’s grateful for small favors that their level of celebrity can bring. 

Though, he thinks, if they weren’t famous at all then they wouldn’t have to evade those crowds of people - and right now, he wishes that were the case more than anything else. 

*

After they’ve made it to the room Phil takes a shower and when he’s finished with his shower he steps out of the bathroom to find Dan on his phone. He can hear the tinny sound of a video playing, his voice vibrant and happy and then suddenly silence before screaming. 

“Dan-” Phil says, as though he can stop and roll back time and make Dan unsee. 

What even is it he doesn’t want Dan to see? He doesn’t know. It just feels like something being exposed that he wants to stay hidden. 

Dan’s eyes are damp. But he doesn’t look upset, not in the way Phil expected. He just looks - lost, almost. And when he speaks, it’s the last thing Phil expects to hear. 

“You were... terrified, weren’t you?” 

Phil looks at him. “Of course,” he finally says. “You knew that.”

How else would he be? 

“Yeah, but.” Dan’s eyes flicker back down to the screen. Phil doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to hear. “You were really scared. I’ve never seen you that scared.”

“Dan,” Phil says, unsure of how to make Dan stop talking, because something about this just makes his skin crawl. 

“Okay,” Dan says softly. He’s watching Phil again, concerned now. “Hey, okay. I’ll drop it. Just-” 

“What?” Phil asks. He has the wild urge to get up and walk out of the room. 

Dan puts his phone down. “Come here. Let’s watch a movie.” 

*

He’s running. 

He’s running down a long hallway and he can see an image projected on the wall at the end. It’s crisp, like high resolution, and the image is Dan. It’s Dan falling and bleeding except it’s not like how it happened in real life. He falls from a higher distance, lands mangled - and there are people swarming him. Phil runs because if he reaches the end of the hallway, he’ll be able to stop Dan. It doesn’t matter that it’s just a projection, he has to reach Dan-

But the faster he runs the further away it is. 

And then the image changes. It shuts off abruptly with a metallic screeching sound, and the ground in front of Phil opens up, and Dan falls onto it. 

He looks up at Phil and his mouth is open and his eyes are wide and he holds out a hand for Phil to help him up, but as soon as Phil reaches out to grasp his fingers Dan falls away again. The projection is on the floor, and Phil looks down and all he sees is Dan falling and falling and falling, not getting any smaller or further away, but still too far for Phil to reach. 

*

He wakes with a shuddering lurch forward, soaked in sweat. 

Dan is fast asleep beside him. 

*

He’s in the hospital. 

The doctor is talking. 

It’s the same doctor as before, but his eyes are strangely glistening and his mouth is too red, like blood. 

He’s got scans of Dan’s head up on the lighted board behind him, almost like he’d done earlier when he’d been giving them those technical explanations of what happened and why it wasn’t so bad, except these aren’t blobs of color like the ones before. 

These are pictures of Dan, actual pictures, and they show Dan’s head cracked open. The doctor has some kind of controller and he’s clicking through the pictures like a slideshow. One of the frames stops and blood trickles down it, three dimensional.

The doctor tsks under his breath and says, “There’s the problem, now,” in a British accent. “There’s the cause of death.” 

Phil turns to look at Dan, who just sighs and says, “Sorry, Phil.” in a vaguely disappointed voice and then-

And then he’s gone.

*

Phil jerks awake again. 

Dan has turned to his other side, facing Phil. 

Phil reaches out and puts his hand on the side of Dan’s face, because he needs to feel - he just needs some kind of tangible connection. 

A frown flickers over Phil’s face. 

_Sorry, Phil._

*

He gives up on the idea of sleep just as the sun begins to rise. He walks into the main room of the suite and stares at the room service menu. 

He’s not hungry. If anything, he’s queasy, caught somewhere between exhausted and hyper-alert. 

He gets dressed silently, slips his feet into shoes and a key card into his back pocket. He’s not even sure where he’s going, he just needs to walk somewhere. 

*

His feet take him to a coffee kiosk. He orders two drinks and four pastries, because he can’t decide what Dan might want. 

His hands are shaking as he takes the drinks, then stares at the bag before putting the drinks back down, sliding his hand through the handle of the bag the pastries are in, then picking the drinks back up. 

When he turns around, he very nearly drops it all. There are four girls staring at him, nerves and excitement radiating off of them. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, I just-” 

“We saw you and we just really needed to know if Dan’s okay,” another one interrupts her to say. 

Phil’s heart is pounding. 

“He’s fine,” he says, some part of him slipping into something automatic. “He’s got a hard head.” 

“Were you worried about him?” She asks, eyes bright and eager. “You must have been so worried. We all were. I hope he’s seen the tweets.” 

He can see that one of her friends has their phone up, camera on. This is being recorded. For all he knows, it’s being streamed live. He can’t remember the last time he felt so thoroughly trapped. 

If Dan were here, Dan would be his voice for him. But Dan isn’t here so Phil finds it in him to start to talk before too much time passes that they find it peculiar. “I was, yeah,” he says. “He’s my - he’s my - Dan. I’m not quite ready for PhilGames just yet. Just doesn’t have the right ring to it. But he’s fine, he’s doing - fine.” 

There was a joke in there somewhere, but no one’s laughing. They’re all just watching him, waiting for more. What else are they waiting for? What do they want from him? 

“I should get back to him, actually,” Phil says, raising the pastry bag and his coffee holder with the two cups. “Left him fast asleep, but he’ll- he’s hungry when he wakes up. He’s... “ 

It’s like an out of body experience, watching himself fall off the cliff. He forces his smile a notch brighter. They’ll rip this apart, they’ll rip him apart, leave nothing but confused shreds. 

“I’ll tell him you said hi!” he says, and pushes past without stopping for selfies or autographs. 

*

*

In the hotel room again, he calmly puts the coffees down, calmly puts the bag with the pastries down, calmly kicks his shoes off. 

Then he crumples. He sits on the floor in front of the sofa and hugs his knees and tries to push the feeling of nausea away. 

Minutes pass. So many minutes. The coffee’s probably cold. 

He eventually hears Dan up and moving around. He hears the door between the bedroom and the living area open and close. He feels Dan’s presence by him, over him. If he opens his eyes he can see Dan’s shoes just to his left. 

Dan’s standing there with his phone in his hand already. “You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you.” 

“Couldn’t,” Phil says. His voice sounds strange and choked. “I kept dreaming about you-” 

He doesn't have to finish it. 

Dan sighs, and sits down beside him. He puts an arm around Phil and tugs him closer. “I feel a lot better today, for the record. Woke up and my head barely hurts.’ He kisses the top of Phil’s head. 

“Did you see-” Phil needs to warn Dan about the girls, about downstairs. 

“I saw,” Dan says softly. 

“Oh.” Phil wants to cry, but he can’t. The pressure just sits on his chest and suffocates him. “I think I messed up.” 

“Phil…” Dan sighs. “It’s not as bad as you think, though. And there is no messing up, you realize that, yeah? We can make the rules here. If you want to be able to tell people that you were scared fucking shitless because your boyfriend had to go to hospital, you can.” Dan’s hand is rubbing up and down Phil’s arm, soothing. “You’re not messing anything up. We’re making these rules as we go.” 

Phil doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t know what to say, but the next breath he draws comes a little easier. 

*

Dan tweets a picture of the room service tray on the bed, and the television playing a movie. 

He’s captioned it _phil is very glad this happened in america so there’s room service and I’m not actually ordering him to bring me food._

Phil okays it first, just a little nod of his head. 

They don’t check to make sure the bed looks slept in by only one. 

They don’t move the second plate and second coffee cup off of the room service tray. 

They also don’t answer any of the tweets at both of them, but it’s out there - just like everything else. Out there and they can’t take it back and they can’t control it but the absence of responsibility is almost freeing. 

“I don’t want to come out,” Phil says. They’ve had this conversation before. They’ve been having this conversation for the past two years, in different variants, and even before that it was along the fringes of their life. 

“We’re not,” Dan says, covering Phil’s hand with his own. They’re both particularly fragile today, just in different ways. Phil curls into him. “We’re not coming out. We’re just not letting being _in_ control our lives.” 

It’s the same answer they always have - the same thing they’ve told each other for years. They don’t need to worry about coming out, there’s been too many other things in their lives that took precedence. 

But it feels like it means something different now. 

*

Phil sleeps off and on most of the afternoon, more off than on. But Dan thinks he’s asleep and he’s fine with that. Dan might want to talk and Phil isn’t sure he’s ready to talk. 

Phil doesn’t feel like he’s making any of the rules. He doesn’t even feel like this is a game he wants to be playing, but there’s no way out that isn’t worse than being in it. 

He just wants to pause time. He wants to rewind back, to not feel like this is crushing him. 

“Get up,” Dan says, nudging at Phil lightly. “We’re leaving.” 

“What?” Phil asks, sitting up. He rubs his eyes a bit. 

“We need a change of scenery,” Dan says. “So I booked us somewhere.” 

“What?” Phil asks again. 

“We’re gonna be rich motherfuckers for a week,” Dan says. “I found somewhere disgustingly nice. We have a private pool. It’ll be great. The car will be here in twenty minutes.” 

“Dan-” 

Dan doesn’t meet his eye, which is the thing Dan does when he’s expecting Phil to disagree with something he’s done or decided and he wants to prolong the argument. 

But Phil has no fight in him right now, and besides, Dan’s right. 

A change of scenery will be nice. 

*

It’s a lavish little villa with a stretch of private beach.

Dan and Phil have stayed in plenty of lavish suites and vacation rentals before - just usually not alone. The one with the private pool in Miami that they shared with Martyn and Cornelia, the ones in the Mediterranean with other friends. Always a bit of plausible deniability to temper it, always too aware of how it looks and how many eyes across the world might see them and recognize.

“Only one bedroom,” Dan says, because his mind must be running the same wavelength as Phil’s. “They didn’t have two on short notice.” 

“Would you have booked it if they did?” Phil asks. 

“Don’t know,” Dan admits. “Maybe not. This is for us, right?” 

Phil just nods and wanders into the kitchen area, trying to ignore the uncomfortable unsurety crawling under his skin still. There’s nothing specific about what Dan just said, but the anxiety he’s felt for days has burrowed in and won’t go away. 

“This looks nice,” he says, picking up an apple. There’s a basket of fresh fruit and a bottle of wine and and a list of food and luxury services that can be delivered for an extra fee. 

“There’s a fire pit,” Dan says. “And the bath tub has jets.” 

“We’ll have to take a bath,” Phil says, glancing over to meet Dan’s eyes. Dan loves baths. They both do. Massive big bath tubs that can fit them both - it’s a necessity for any holiday they take. 

Not that this is like a normal holiday. But if Dan wants to pretend, Phil will try. 

*

It’s a late dinner when it comes, but the food looks mouthwatering. Dan spreads it all out on the balcony table and Phil follows along with it, taking his seat outside where the air smells like salt and the only thing he can hear is the crashing of waves. 

They’ve done this before. Romantic dinners in exotic cities all over the world. That’s part of the life they lead, just as much as sitting on the sofa at home shouting at a video game or editing until their fingers feel achey. 

“Phil, I’m fine, you know that, right?” Dan asks. He talks evenly and picks his words carefully, which is a sign to Phil that Dan’s been rehearsing this in his head. “I’ve got a headache and I’m embarrassed I fell off a stage, but besides that, I’m sorted. I’ll get over it. I already feel better today than I did yesterday. What about you, though? What’s going on with you? You’ve been weird all week and I don’t know what to make of it.” 

“I don’t know,” Phil stops picking apart a piece of bread and drops his head into his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dan.” 

“Was it me? Or was it - everyone else?” Dan asks. 

“Both, maybe.” Phil can feel the exhaustion creeping over him again. “I didn’t know what to do. You were hurt, and I didn’t know what to do.” 

“It wasn’t your job to know what to do,” Dan says. “You’re not a doctor.” 

Phil doesn’t say anything. 

“You know why I fell, right? The whole,” Dan waves his hand around. “The orthostatic hypotension thing. I stood up too fucking fast. That’s it. I’m fine.”

“I know,” Phil says, because he does know. He heard the doctor say it. He trusts that. Mostly. He’s not sure how to say that it’s not about Dan’s health itself, so much as everything else around it. “But I didn’t know what to do. Because everyone was watching.” 

“Is that what you were thinking about when you saw me?” Dan asks. “That everyone was watching?” 

“I was only thinking that I needed you to be okay,” Phil says. “But everyone was recording it. You saw the videos. They’re everywhere.” 

“And that bothers you?” Dan presses. “Embarrasses you? Makes you feel bad?” 

“I don’t know how it makes me feel,” Phil says, halfway shouting. 

Dan blinks at him, expression unchanged. “Okay.” 

“I can’t,” Phil says, pushing back from the table. “I just - I can’t.” 

“It’s okay,” Dan says. “Go get some air. I’ll be here.” 

*

The problem is that Phil can’t escape what he really wants to escape, because all of that is in his own head. 

It’s not Dan. Dan’s not a problem. Dan’s never been a problem. Dan’s the solution. Phil just can’t figure out the right equation to get there. 

He takes his shoes off at the end of the walkway. The sand feels nice beneath his feet. He walks right to the water’s edge where it squishes wetly between his toes and then he walks down, almost down to the boundary between their villa and the next. 

When he looks back he can see Dan still sitting on the balcony, eating and holding his phone up. Phil’s not that far away. If he shouted very loudly, Dan would be able to hear him. 

He doesn’t want to be too far from Dan. 

*

He walks back up to the deck after twenty minutes. 

“Feel better?” Dan asks, passively glancing up from his phone before he sets the phone down on the table. 

His food his mostly gone. Phil’s sits untouched. 

“Sorry,” Phil says quietly. 

“Don’t apologize,” Dan says. “How are you doing?” 

“I don’t know,” Phil says. “I don’t like feeling like I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, and that’s all I’ve felt all week.” 

“Okay,” Dan says slowly. “So what if I tell you what to do?” 

“What?” Phil asks. 

“First of all, eat. You’ve barely eaten anything, don’t think I haven’t noticed. And then you’re gonna get undressed and we’re gonna get in bed, and you’re gonna cuddle the fuck out of me, because I know I’ve been bitchy and distant all week long, and I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t-” 

 

“No, look, I know I had reasons. I felt like shit, everything hurt, and I was embarrassed. I know I’m hard to deal with when I’m like that. Just like you’re hard to deal with when you’re like this, but we put up with each other because that’s what you do when you’re committed to someone. So that’s the plan: eat, cuddle. Sleep. Like, really sleep, because I know you haven’t slept, either. We’re not gonna move out of that bed for like, ten fucking hours.” 

“Except to pee,” Phil says. 

Dan grins. “Except to pee. Because we haven’t negotiated that kink yet.” 

Phil scrunches his face up. “Ew.” 

“Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. Now,” Dan says. “Eat.” 

*

They’re back at home, in the lift going up to their flat, but nothing’s quite right. The walls look like they’re wet and the buttons are glowing purple and Dan is staring straight ahead at the space where the doors should be opening. 

_Dan_ , Phil says, and he can see the words float through Dan in an intangible way. _Dan._

Dan turns and looks at him and he opens his mouth and the sound that comes out is blackness. 

*

“Wake up,” Dan says, shaking Phil’s shoulder lightly. 

Phil’s eyes are damp and his breath hitches before he even finishes drawing it. 

It’s still dark out. It’s very dark, moonlight casting a faint glow where it comes in through the flung open window. Phil breathes in fully, in and out, counting in his mind. He can taste the ocean and it’s better than the blackness. 

“Dan,” he says. The dream is wisping away but it’s still there: the black that Dan had spoken, a nonsensical thing he couldn’t describe but still feels down to his fingertips. 

“Right here.” This Dan, the real Dan, _his_ Dan, just sounds sleepy and concerned. 

Phil turns into him and clamps his arms around Dan and falls back asleep with Dan’s fingers in his hair. 

*

He does sleep after that, though. 

He sleeps for almost ten full hours and he wakes up with creaky bones and an over-rested sort of headache and a parched mouth, but it’s a fantastic feeling compared to the previous four days.

“Rising from the dead?” Dan asks, from across the room where he’s sat at the little corner table beside the window. His laptop is out. “I went on a tweet spree. No apologies.” 

Phil reaches for his phone and finds that Dan’s posted a picture of him asleep to instagram. The picture is taken close up, mostly Phil but Dan’s leg visible toward the bottom of it. There’s no sarcastic caption, no joke beyond a beach and a sleeping emoji. Dan swipes his finger across so Phil sees that it’s part of a set - a picture of the view outside, a thumbs up selfie from Dan.

Phil swipes it back to the one of him. He understands the purpose now but there’s a numb kind of shock that radiates out at the sight of picture, the blatant intimacy of it. “Dan-” 

Dan doesn’t look sorry. He doesn’t look nervous. He looks content, more content than Phil’s seen him in a while. “You’re not mad, are you?” 

“I’m not,” Phil says, because it’s the truth. He might not entirely know what he feels, but mad isn’t it. “But why?” 

Dan shrugs. “Needed a way to tell people we were fucking off somewhere for the rest of the week and not to expect anything. Unless…” 

“What?” Phil asks. 

“Unless you _want_ to do something later,” Dan says. 

“Like?” 

Dan shrugs. “Stream?” 

“I don’t know,” Phil says, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Maybe.” 

He heard Dan’s chair scrape across the floor, but he doesn’t open his eyes again until he feels the dip of weight on the bed. Dan crawls toward him and straddles Phil’s lap. “Okay,” he says, and cups Phil’s face, leaning in to kiss him. 

It is, Phil realizes, the first time they’ve properly kissed all week. It’s a jarring thought, and it makes Phil kiss back even more intensely. 

“You’re making my head spin,” Dan says, laughing sheepishly. 

“Your poor head,” Phil says, reaching up and brushing his fingers just over Dan’s ears on either side, steering clear of where it’s still tender. “I’m sorry I’ve been so useless.” 

“You haven’t been,” Dan says. “That was a lot on you, being the one to tell everyone what was going on, keep everyone updated, talking to the audience on twitter…” 

Phil wraps his arms around Dan and rests his head on Dan’s bare shoulder. “I want to fill out the medical paperwork when we get back home.” 

Dan’s hand rests on the back of his neck. “What?” 

“I couldn’t go back with you, in hospital. If they’d taken you straight off I don’t even know if I’d have been allowed to ride with you, I don’t know how that works. But I don’t want there to ever be any question about it.” Phil’s thought about this, but never with such a crystallized purpose until now as he speaks the words out loud. 

“Okay,” Dan says. 

“And I want to have some kind of plan in place,” Phil says. “If something happens to one of us. I want to not have to be worrying about our audience if this happens again.” 

“It won’t-” Dan starts to say, then stops, as if realizing that this isn’t really about what just happened so much as about the things keeping Phil up at night. “Yeah. Okay.” 

“And I want-” Phil stops. He presses his forehead to Dan’s neck. “I want to stop putting our plans on hold. I don’t want to keep waiting.” 

He feels Dan go very, very still. “Plans?” 

“Yeah,” Phil says. “Those plans.” 

When he pulls back, he’s almost afraid to see the expression on Dan’s face - but he doesn’t need to be, because Dan is smiling ear to ear. 

*

Martyn calls that afternoon.

Dan’s out for a walk, which is code for just needing a bit of time to himself. Phil doesn’t hold it against him. 

They’ve had a long morning. Lots of talking - lots of planning. The kinds of plans that make Phil feel giddy and queasy at the same time, but it’s mostly good now. He’s reeling almost, bubbling over. The past week has been a roller coaster of ups and downs but it feels like the tracks are leveling out and he can see the platform ahead. 

“We’re flying back tomorrow,” Martyn says. “Unless you need us to stay?” 

To be honest, Phil hadn’t even remembered that Martyn and Cornelia were still in the states. His mind feels fragmented, all the normal pieces he keeps together just scattered about. 

“We’ll be fine,” Phil says. “We have a light week ahead.” 

“Tell Dan we’re onto him,” Martyn says. “Head wound just to get an extra week of holiday is a bit extreme, but can’t argue with the results.” 

Phil’s not sure if he’d have been able to laugh at that a day ago, but now he chuckles. “Yeah. I’ll let him know.” 

“And-” Martyn hesitates. “Are you okay? Because the last few days, you haven’t seemed so…” 

“Yeah,” Phil says, not making him finish the sentence. “I’m doing better. Dan was right, we did just need out of that hotel, I think.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Martyn says. “Because I care. Not just because you’re my bread and butter.” 

Bread and butter. That sounds good. 

And apparently his appetite has also returned.

“Martyn,” Phil says, just before Martyn hands up. He blurts it out, because he wants to say it to someone: “I think Dan and I might get married next year.” 

“Oh. Wow,” Martyn says. “I guess you are feeling better. Discover that life is too short, and all that jazz?” 

“Something like that,” Phil says. He hears footsteps on the creaky wood leading up to their villa and smiles. “I’ll chat more about it with you later.” 

Because oh, he’s going to have so much to say. They’ve only barely started talking about the tangible things, the logistics, then when and where and what groundwork needs to be laid first. It’ll take time, maybe a year, maybe it’ll end up being closer to two. But they’ve got time. 

“You bet you will-” Martyn says, but Phil ends the call and cuts him off. 

*

The airport is bustling with crowds and people moving at frantic paces and long lines for food establishments. 

“I need a coffee desperately,” Phil says, because the rescheduled flight was booked for just past dawn Los Angeles Time and they’re habitual early airport arrivers now. 

“Of course you do,” Dan says, snaking an arm out to poke Phil in the fleshy bit of his side. “More like I need you to have coffee, not making the mistake of letting you wait ‘til the drink cart comes around on a plane again. AmazingPhil without his coffee makes AMiserableDan.” 

“I’m not that bad,” Phil grumbles. 

“No, you’re worse.” Dan says, bumping Phil’s shoulder with his own. 

Phil looks at him and smiles, just smiles, and Dan smiles back, and maybe it’s because they’ve spent the past four days completely insulated in each other’s company, spent almost all of it in bed with all their defenses down, but Phil can’t stop staring and he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to stop. 

Even when they hear the sound of a throat clearing and a timid, “Hi?” behind them. 

They turn and there’s a girl there, in her late teens. Milling nearby must be her parents, trying to not appear as though they’re hovering but still blatantly doing so. 

“Hi there,” Dan says, slipping into that greeting voice he has. “How are you, would you like a picture?” 

“Yes, please,” she says, eyes wide.

Phil pastes his comfortable fan photo smile on while Dan snaps a picture with her phone. Her background is a picture of the two of them. (It shouldn’t be strange anymore, but somehow it still is.) 

She takes a step back when the picture taking is done with, but doesn’t walk away yet. “How are you?” She asks, hesitation in her voice. “I mean, since your fall?” 

“I’m perfectly fine,” Dan says, with a laugh that’s neither entirely natural nor actually uncomfortable. He looks at Phil and his eyes crinkle at the corners with a smile. “I made this one play nursemaid for me all week.” 

“It was awful,” Phil says. “I told him I’m taping his feet to the stage every time we do an event from now on. I’m never going through that again.” 

“ _You_ aren’t!” Dan mock protests. “Right, fine, I see how it is, Mister Lester.” 

“Shut up, _Mister Howell_.” Phil laughs, and they have an audience, he’s aware they have an audience. But Dan’s laughing low and warm and they can’t stop smiling at each other, haven’t been able to for days. 

In another twelve hours they’ll be home and it’s just - right. It feels right, and he wants to share how right it is. With the world, eventually - but right here with this one person is as good a starting place as any.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on twitter and tumblr @ alittledizzy, and [here's a link](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/166572418360/title-closer-to-where-i-started-rating-m-word) to this fic on tumblr if you'd like to reblog it. :)


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